Opponents Decry Preserve Development

November 18, 2004|By CLAUDIA VAN NES; Courant Staff Writer

OLD SAYBROOK — Proposed development of the 1,000-acre Preserve would pollute drinking water, cause traffic congestion, destroy birds' habitats, cost the town millions of dollars in bridge costs, crowd the schools and be ``a sword to the throat of Essex,'' critics told the town planning commission Wednesday.

On two nights of hearings earlier this month on the development of 248 high-end homes and an 18-hole golf course on the wooded tract, developer Lehman Bros. Holding Inc. had the floor of much of the time. Opponents got their say Wednesday, and they minced no words.

Essex First Selectman Phil Miller, a naturalist, held up a box turtle and told the commission he had found such turtles, whose populations are dwindling, on the site. Development will wipe them out, said Miller, who also is concerned about the vernal pools that would be destroyed by the golf course construction. Small portions of The Preserve property are in Essex and Westbrook.

While Old Saybrook opponents decried the effect on the Oyster River aquifer, Miller said contamination of the smaller Mud River aquifer on the property, 30 acres of which spill over into Essex, could pollute water supplies in Essex.

He called the project ``a sword to the throat of Essex'' and vowed it wouldn't go through on his watch.

Equally adamant was Old Saybrook Selectman Bill Peace, a retired state Department of Transportation engineer, who said the three bridges proposed for the development and likely turned over to the town would need to be replaced in 50 years. He figured ``this unfounded liability'' would cost the town $108 million by then. ``It's totally unreasonable for the town to accept these bridges,'' Peace said.

Further, Peace called the road into the development ``a road to nowhere.''

``No one here,'' he said to the audience of 80 or so, ``will ever use it.''

Seventh-grader Dilon Jones said the development will mean ``lots more kids in the schools'' and he wondered how ``we can handle that.''

The homes will cost between $400,000 and $1 million, and Dilon worried about that as well. ``I think $1 million is a lot to pay for a house. I don't think we can afford that,'' he said.

Wayne Malloy, whose family members have been oyster fishermen for the last century, said he is concerned the runoff from the golf course and housing will find its way into the Oyster River and eventually Long Island Sound, ``destroying shellfish.''

Malloy's concerns expanded to deer and bear and other wildlife whose habitats would be lost, he said, if the development is allowed.

The developers are proposing that 60 percent of the land be preserved as open space. But Nancy Radoff scoffed at this, calling the open space plan ``Swiss cheese'' because it appeared to her the undeveloped portions were not contiguous.

``This is too beautiful a place to do to this to. This is a tiny town in a tiny state. Why don't they go do this in one of those great big red states in the middle of the country?'' Radoff remarked to applause.

The commission plans to close its public hearing by Dec. 8 and has 65 days to deliberate.